Walgreen Stands Alone
As Challengers Multiply

In a battle of titans -- the country's biggest supermarket chains vs. Walgreen Co., the U.S. drugstore chain with the highest revenues -- Walgreen has blinked first.

With little fanfare, it has abandoned its traditional reliance on strip-mall locations in favor of building stand-alone stores. One reason: supermarkets, key anchor tenants in many strip malls, have elbowed their way into the prescription-drug business, selling pain...